Thirty

Thirty Lyrics

[Verse 1]
There was a time
When you put your hand on the small of my back
I was surprised that you touched me like that
But there in your hand was a current of life
I could hardly stand
I stayed still
And I didn't mention it
Or if I did, I made some joke of it
It was strange how I could feel so sane
So plain when you're around

[Verse 2]
And unbidden to me
There it rose, the fantasy
Colored rose and easy
Yeah, I could see it so simple, unsubtle
Impossible, clearly
And strange
Far and as close as a mountain range
On the horizon driving all day
There I was, so sane
So plain after everything

[Verse 3]
Gas came down
From a buck-twenty
The joke was how
It broke the economy anyhow
The dollar was down
But my friends opened businesses
There were new children
And again, I didn't get married
I wasn't close to my family
And my dad was raising a child in Nairobi
She was three now, he told me

[Verse 4]
Gas stations I laughed inI noticed fucking everything
The light, the reflections
Different languages, your expressions
We would fall down laughing
Effervescent
And all over nothing, all over nothing

Just as though
It was a joke my whole life through
All of the pain and sorrow I knew
All of the tears that had fallen from my eyes
I can't say why
We walked in the park
Under the shade
I avoided your eyes
I was ashamed of my own mind
No SSRIs
My day is dark as your night

[Verse 5]
Oh, you got
The kindest of eyes
I cannot help but notice sometimes
But you know, as do I
I cannot look twice without falling right
Into the sweet and the tender line between
Something I can and can never be
And just then an ambulance
Passed on the street
And you took my arm reflexively

[Refrain]
That was the year I was thirty
That was the year you were thirty-one
That was the year that we lost, or we won

That was the year I was thirty
That was the year you were thirty-one
That was that year, now here
Now here is another one

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About “Thirty”

For women, 30 is the number you’re taught to fear. When you’re 25, you picture it like falling off the edge of a cliff, into some amorphous bisected destiny – one path children, suburbia, the other some sort of cartoonish loneliness. I was 30. My parents had just gotten divorced, my friends were having kids, and I was touring Europe in a station wagon. And I was incredibly happy. Losing my mind over Swedish rest stops and laughing in parking lots with my friends. I wrote the song about that precise moment – joy balanced on the cusp of despair.”